Identifying Plagiarized Work Part 1

Identifying Plagiarized Work Part 1

With the advent of the Internet, it is now possible to write about almost anything and post it in the Web. This leads to the phenomenon of blogging and all its other forms. With the rise of this activity, there are also some people that make money out it. The sad part though is that there are some people that steal someone else’s work and post it as their own and earn from that act. This is one form of plagiarism and it is becoming rampant in the World Wide Web.
Especially with sites that can easily be hacked by spammers, there is a great chance that spammers get access to someone’s blog and repost it as someone else’s work. Detecting if this happens to one of your blogs is an intimidating challenge. Knowing how big the virtual world is together with its continuous growth everyday, identifying which sites make use of your work can be a hard work to do. It might even require too much of your time. But this is not much of a problem nowadays. This is because as plagiarism becomes widespread in the Internet, there are also some ways that are developed to detect it. To be able to do this, one just needs to know about these ways and how to use these properly.Plagiarism in Text
The most widespread form of plagiarism in the internet is those that make use of text. Since it is made of words, it can easily be copied and reposted. Also, even if you make use of some javascript techniques or hide it with images, these can still be in vain and stealing is still possible to happen.
Though this might be the most rampant, it is also the one that can easily be resolved. There are already many tools to use to check who use your intellectual property. The basic action that anyone can do to detect plagiarists is to search a specific phrase in search engines. With this, you can find other websites that make use of the same phrase and might even lead you to plagiarists. Also, you can opt for Google Alert if you want to be updated of new websites that may use the exact phrase. With this, it will not be difficult to keep updated and informed about possible thief.
There are also other tools that can be used to detect plagiarists. Among these tools are Copyscape, PlagiarismChecker, and Article Checker. These websites offer refined searches on possible websites that are using your articles. However, there are some limitations that these websites have. As for WordPress users, you can use a special tool called Maxpower’s Digital Fingerprint Plugin. This enables you to insert a fingerprint and make use of this to activate a Google Alert.Plagiarism in Images
Though not as rampant as the plagiarism in text, there are still some cases of photo plagiarism. Good thing about photos is that it cannot be easily stolen. In fact, it can be guarded. However, with the presence of photo sharing sites, plagiarism in photos are also made possible.
When photos that are found in some photo sharing sites are stolen, it will be hard to locate it. Unlike text, photos cannot be easily seen even if one depends on highly advanced search tools. The best solution to track down other people that use your pictures is to give your file a unique name and search for that filename later. Also, you can depend on server logs by checking on it more often.
These are just some of the ideas and tips that you can use when identifying plagiarists in the Internet.